Fashion Design Drawing

Sports design should conform with the requirements of the game, ample room being allowed for stretch of the limbs, and should be fairly short in length. If the silhouette of the moment should be a " slim " one, the ample room required in the sports skirt can be obtained by concealed pleats that will open out to the need and retire when at rest.

Business or office garments should be designed for hard wear. The material should be dark in colour, and made attractive by buttons, strappings, and other neat attachments.

Morning dress should be on similar lines.

Afternoon dress or costume can be much more " dressy " in ornament and material.

The evening dress can go to any extreme in style, material, and decoration.

The choice of fabrics is now so wide that there should be no difficulty in arranging suitable garments for all occasions. Suitable dressing means tasteful dressing, and every item of the toilette must conform with the " idea " embodied in the dress.

A crinoline type is not suitable when it must be worn with shingled hair, nor soft curling ringlets with Grecian draperies.

Beads or sequins should not enter into the scheme of design for strictly sports, morning, or business wear, as all suggestions of jewellery are out of place.

Influence of the Past (Plate 70).

Fashions change and vary so rapidly that one has ever to seek fresh inspiration, and a walk around a museum or art gallery will give many new ideas.

The designs on this Plate, which have been taken from various fashion centres, seem to have derived their origin and inspiration from this source, and been adapted to later periods.

At Fig. 1 are shown the lines of a vogue of 1923, and at Fig. 2 those of the Egyptian vogue of its own period. The Greek influence, by its appeal of graceful flowing draperies (see Fig. 4), has left its mark upon later vogues of many periods.

Figs. 3, 6, 7, and even 8, could fairly be said to have the " influence of suggestion " of the Greek idea.